Black Land Matters

The final two articles in the Summer 2023 issue of Rethinking Schools, "Resisting Debt, Funding Justice," shift from financial freedom to the freedom found in returning to the land and honoring Black heritage.

This post focuses on Leah Penniman's article, "Black Land Matters," a story of memory, revival and liberation. 

Penniman begins by illustrating the modern disconnect from the land by describing a field trip to a Black-led farm focused on food justice. On arrival, a student refuses to get out of the bus and get his Jordans dirty. 

Seeing everyone else leave, he takes off his shoes and goes barefoot. By the end of the trip, this direct connection with the earth brought back memories of gardening with his grandmother. 

For Black farmers, says Penniman, "the memories of chattel slavery, sharecropping, convict leasing, and lynching were bound up with our relationship to the Earth. For many of our ancestors, freedom from terror and separation from the soil were synonymous."

However, Penniman goes on to show the 12,000+ year legacy of agriculture in Africa is longer and deeper than the 250 year history of slavery in America. She shows how many fundamental technologies in farming were discovered in Africa. 

Many African women, as they were about to be captured and transported, hid seeds in their clothing and hair. This was a form of heritage they planned to preserve. 

This reminded me of a TED Talk featuring Lyla June. She described the land European settlers found as not a wilderness but "a living heirloom thousands of years in the making." Native peoples had been cultivating and preserving the land as massive food forests for thousands of years. 

To plug a local organization that has long-standing relationships with the land in Rhode Island, the Tomaquag Museum is an excellent resource. They offer a tour of their grounds that gives a fascinating account of edible plants both native and introduced to the region. 

Agriculturalists from Black and Native cultures share an element of preservation. Of working with natural systems to benefit people and the other living beings that depend on them. However, many modern farming methods contribute significantly to ecosystem erosion: 

"Agriculture continues to have a profound impact on the climate; along with forestry, deforestation, and other land use, it contributes roughly 24 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions."

Heritage farming methods are some of the most potent counters to these harmful effects. 

But these relationships are not only environmental. Penniman concludes by showing examples of Black farmers starting cooperatives as a means of not only returning to the land and heritage but also as a means of economic and political liberation. 

 

"Fannie Lou Hamer, who said, 'When you have 400 quarts of greens and gumbo soup canned for the winter, no one can push you around or tell you what to do.'"